A federal agency wants to throw 30,000 people out of work and
sacrifice a $4.4 billion industry.

At issue: electricity. Or, rather, the lack of it.

In a case that puts the lie to critics who say President Bush
is wrong to say we face an "energy crisis," the Bonneville
Power Administration (BPA), which provides electrical power to
the Pacific Northwest, has decided to stop selling electricity
to that region's aluminum industry, effective October 1.

The decision, which the BPA defends because energy demand exceeds
supply, would mean an end to 7,500 aluminum and 23,000 related
jobs.

It also confirms that the California electricity crisis will
hit other states.

The BPA overpromised electricity to customers. The agency now
faces the option of refusing to sell energy to certain customers
or to spread the pain among all customers equally. It has chosen
the former.

If its decision stands, it will put a sudden end to the region's
extensive, sixty-year-old aluminum industry.

BPA officials say they'll allow the aluminum smelters to restart
in two years. But industry officials say it is not a simple matter
to close and restart. Companies will incur huge costs during shutdown
from maintenance, utilities, debt service, insurance, taxes, environmental
upkeep and more. Severe disruptions will occur in relationships
with suppliers. Workers will leave the industry and sometimes
the region, leaving a shortage of skilled employees.

Some believe all this is for the greater good. The Seattle
Times says the industry's death will keep wholesale energy price
increases at 38% over a five-year period as opposed to 91%, and
keeping the aluminum jobs represents an unfair "tax"
on the region.

Perhaps they should consider how taxing it is to pull the plug
on the livelihood of so many workers and communities.

Science has not exactly been kind to proponents of the theory
that mankind is causing global warming. It seems that not a month
goes by without another scientific study casting doubts on the
theory.

Just recently, a team of scientists led by Dr. Richard Lindzen
of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology published a paper
in which they theorize that there could be a natural "vent"
in the Earth's atmosphere that releases heat into space. The authors
say that, if true, the existence of a de facto atmospheric thermostat
that helps keep the Earth's temperature on an even keel would
require global warming theorists to significantly scale back their
predictions of warming allegedly caused by the buildup of greenhouse
gases.

The study was published in the March 2001 issue of the Bulletin
of the American Meteorological Society. It examines how thin,
high cirrus clouds help to regulate global temperature - and serve
as a counter to global warming. In short, the study says that
cirrus clouds operate much as the "iris" of an eye regulates
the admission of light. The clouds open in response to rising
surface temperature, permitting cooling. The clouds close when
the surface temperature cools to retain heat.

The study's authors say these findings require climate modelers
to scale back by as much as two-thirds the projected warming that
would result from a doubling of carbon dioxide.

Lindzen says that the study's results as well as scientific
evidence on other natural climate processes should give global
warming theorists considerable pause before recommending economically-drastic
measures to combat the unproven man-made warming threat.

Speaking bluntly, Lindzen says that, in view of the paucity
of evidence for human-driven climate change, "the Kyoto Treaty
is absurd."

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